Mitchelstown News from The Avondhu

PLANS TO MOVE BUS EIREANN TO MITCHELSTOWN SHELVED AGAIN

The long proposed relocation of Bus Eireann to Mitchelstown will not happen until 2011, if at all, following this week’s budget.

While Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said this week that the decentralisation first proposed in December 2003 by Charlie McCreevy was ‘deferred’ until 2011, many commentators believe that this suspension will, in reality, see the project eventually scrapped.

In the 5 years since the Government originally proposed decentralisation, three quarters of the civil servant positions targeted for relocation remain in Dublin. Included in that figure are the 200 Bus Eireann jobs that were earmarked for a move to Mitchelstown.

“The Government have been leading us on a merry dance on this issue since McCreevy announced this in 2003,” Cork East Labour TD Sean Sherlock said this week.

“Now it appears that this is not going to happen. For the minister to state that the relocation will be deferred pending review in 2011 smacks of a government seemingly kicking to touch, but realistically burying policy. In reality decentralisation is dead as policy,” Deputy Sherlock claimed.